The new school year started Thursday for the thousands of students of Arlington Heights School District 25, with a new superintendent at the helm and full day kindergarten now offered at seven schools.
“The board voted to expand our kindergarten program to a full day at the interest of the entire community,” said Superintendent Brian Kaye.
This school year marked the first for Kaye as the district’s chief, taking over for Lori Bein who retired after 10 years as SD25 superintendent. Kaye started in the role as of July 1.
“We’ve had a half-day program forever and there was an interest in supporting our young learners with a full-day program,” he explained.
Parents still have an option to choose a half-day program for their children. But of the 486 kindergarteners in the district’s 27 kindergarten classrooms across five schools, only 15 are currently choosing the half-day program.
“If any of them are interested in moving to full day, we will give them that option whenever they’re ready,” Kaye said.
The expanded kindergarten schedule includes dedicated times daily for reading, writing, foundational phonic skills practice, math, science and social studies, officials explained.
“In the past, there would be dedicated time for the reading, the writing and the phonics, and they would alter focusing on math, science, and social studies,” said Kaye.
The content of the courses is designed by a Kindergarten Committee.
“We asked them to choose a morning portion if they’re going to be a half-day student so that we could front-load the curriculum portion,” Kaye said.
The superintendent made rounds on the first day of the school year, visiting several of the district’s nine schools. He said there is excitement about the kindergarten full-day program.
“I was at Windsor Elementary School [Thursday] at their arrival and I saw lots of parents walking their kindergarten students to school, and I could see the excitement and I could hear the excitement,” he said.
Kaye was at Ivy Hill Elementary School – which is one of two schools in the district that also has a pre-K program – during the lunch period. For him, seeing all of the kindergartners having lunch for the first time in the school was exciting.
“What I loved most about it was the number of fifth grade students that were volunteering to help support all those kindergartners,” he said.
Also at the start of this school year, District 25 held six ribbon-cuttings. Six of the district’s elementary schools required addition of space or classrooms to accommodate the move to full day kindergarten.
The Dryden Elementary School ribbon-cutting was held Tuesday – two days before the academic year started. Aug. 27.
“The exciting part for me was there was an opportunity to reveal to the community that construction is complete. We are ready to start full-day kindergarten and the building space itself is ready,” Kaye said about the ribbon cuttings.
He said the events offered the whole community a chance to walk through the new additions that had been completed. The gymnasium at Dryden was expanded and four new classrooms were added.
The capital improvements across the district came after voters approved a $75 million referendum in the 2022 election. However, the ballot measure passed narrowly, with fewer than 50 votes separating the ‘yes’ count from the ‘no.’
In attendance at the ribbon cuttings were Arlington Heights Mayor Tom Hayes, Village Manager Randy Recklaus, Chamber of Commerce Director Jon Ridler, village trustees, Park District commissioners, school board members, district principals and assistant principals, PTA presidents and others.
The ribbon-cuttings mark the conclusion of the district’s Build25 Project.
Myrna Petlicki is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
